-KAJA-

  It was becoming painfully obvious to Kaja that not everyone on the Freighter was going to survive. She was dealing with a vicious virus. The more she fought it, the more it adapted. If given all the time in the world, she would win. She was confident of that, but she did not have all the time in the world. She had 30 minutes at most.

  She heard Ramis step closer towards her.

  "How's it going?" he asked.

  "It's… going," Kaja responded.

  "Going?" Ramis echoed.

  "Yeah, it's going somewhere. I'm just not sure where."

  "Errrr… should we evacuate?" Ramis asked.

  In a normal circumstance it would have been an excellent question, but it seemed Kaja was the only person who remembered that they were hurtling through jumpspace.

  "Evacuate where Ramis?" she asked.

  "I don't know," he responded. "There are several ships parked on the Freighter's deck. Plus some escape pods in the crew quarters. We could use those to get away."

  Kaja took a deep breath. Her fingers continued to fly across the holographic keyboard. She had mastered talking while working long ago.

  "Okay," she said, "let's examine the options, Ramis. We're in jumpspace and there's only one type of ship designed to survive jumpspace forces. Freighters. If we evacuate into the starships on deck and exit the freighter before we leave jumpspace, we will get torn to shreds. The escape pods are even more useless in that regard."

  "I know that," Ramis said. "I mean for when we exit jumpspace."

  "We would be incinerated by the sun."

  Ramis hesitated. "But you're going to get us away from the sun," he said.

  "Yes," Kaja said, feeling rather proud of her patience in this conversation. "Yes," she said, "I'm trying to do that."

  "And when you do, it might leave us in a Freighter that's not able to continue flying. I'm just saying it might be wise to get into the ships and be ready for that."

  Ramis was thinking, and Kaja appreciated that. As such, she decided to let him in on what she had discovered.

  "Most of the ships are useless," she said.

  Ramis blinked. "Excuse me?"

  "They're useless," Kaja repeated. "The virus infected them. Most of the ships interfaced with the Freighter's system when they docked. You should know that."

  "Uh huh."

  "And that docking allowed the virus to spread into them and destroy their systems. It was one of the first things the virus did."

  From the corner of her eye, she noticed Ramis' posture change as he began to understand the gravity of the situation.

  Kaja continued. "The only ships unaffected are those that didn't interface with the Freighter. And the only ones that didn't do that are-"

  "Your ship and the First Order ship," Ramis finished for her.

  "Bingo."

  The StarHawk and the First Order’s ship both ran on an isolated system that did not interface well with the Freighter. This was because the Stellar Authority was a bit paranoid about sharing some of their technology. Kaja had once thought it unnecessary. There were several organisations with technology more advanced than the Stellar Authority. Yet, the Authority’s paranoia might have borne fruit here. At least for those who made it onto those two ships.

  "There are only two viable ships on board," Kaja repeated. "Our StarHawk and the Cruiser those religious guys came with. The Authority gave it to them."

  She caught herself. ‘Did I just say OUR StarHawk?’

  "So what do we do?" Ramis asked.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  His question made her stop and stare at him. "I don't know, Ramis. I'm a little busy trying to keep the killer virus from incinerating us. Ask the scary guy over there." She pointed at Hanzo. Ramis took a deep breath and walked towards Hanzo.

  Kaja turned her attention back to the Master Cube console. Fighting the virus felt like playing a game of the whack-a-mole. One of her uncles had introduced her to the old Earth game when she was a child. Kaja had had fun whacking the erratic mole heads. She was not having fun now.

  Behind her, she heard Ramis speaking to Hanzo in hurried whispers. She prayed and hoped that the scary ninja man would have some solution. Hanzo grunted then walked over to stand next to her.

  "Is what he says true?" Hanzo asked.

  "That there are only 2 working starships? Yup, that's true."

  "Mm. And how far along are you?"

  "With stopping us from being launched into a sun? Fairly far along."

  "Which means?"

  "Which means I've managed to disguise myself as the virus. Right now I'm trying to lie to it. I’m trying to feed it with different coordinates to launch us to."

  "Can't you just prevent the launching?"

  "No. That ship's sailed," Kaja laughed. "Hey that's a pun, isn't it? Ship’s sailed. And we're in a Freighter. Get it?"

  She glanced up at Hanzo. He wasn't laughing. Kaja wasn't sure he knew how to.

  "I can't stop the launching," Kaja said under her breath.

  Hanzo grunted again. Kaja wondered whether she would learn how to interpret the grunts if she spent enough time with him.

  "So what are these different coordinates you're feeding it?" Hanzo asked.

  Kaja shrugged. "I used Chin. That’s our destination, right? I extracted the coordinates from the ship's manifest."

  Hanzo nodded. "Then when you succeed, we would not need to evacuate."

  Kaja wished that were true. "Errr," she said, "There's one more thing."

  "What is that?"

  "I did some math. When we get… launched, the ship's going to be subject to a crazy amount of external force. It might get ripped apart."

  "Might?"

  She looked Hanzo in the eye. "This is new territory. I'm doing my best." She expected rough admonition to do better, but Hanzo merely nodded.

  "Thank you for doing your best," he said. "We believe in you." He walked away.

  "Right," Kaja responded softly. A warm sensation spread across her chest and touched her cheeks. "I'll do my best."

  She heard Hanzo's voice boom behind her. "You are all free," he said to the crew members. Murmurs spread through the crew.

  "What?!" Ramis said in shock.

  Kaja glanced back. The crew members were looking around, uncertain of what to do. Hanzo didn't bother explaining. He turned back around and walked to Kaja.

  "Why did you do that?" She asked.

  "It is too much for me to decide who lives and dies. Let fate decide."

  "You killed a number of people on our way here."

  "That was fate. They were in our way."

  ‘I see,’ Kaja thought. Out loud she asked. "Is it really fate, if you know the way to safety but don't tell them and leave them to find it themselves?"

  She gasped as she noticed Hanzo smile. He was actually capable of it. Hanzo said, "You think remarkably clearly for someone who is supposed to be fighting a super virus."

  Kaja grinned. She glanced back again and saw that many of the crew members were filing out but two remained in place: The vice captain and the Lulan from whom she had taken the Master Cube from.

  There was the Captain too, but he remained catatonic on the floor. The Lulan walked forward. "I might be able to help," he said sheepishly. "I've been watching you. I think I can keep the virus busy while you try to change the coordinates."

  Kaja nodded in admiration. "You noticed what I was doing just from observation? You are not as bad as I thought." She tapped on the Master Cube and a secondary holographic set up appeared for the Lulan to use.

  The Lulan got to work. He was right. Though he was slower than her, his input made her work move much quicker.

  Kaja grinned. They might actually beat the virus on time.

  ‘There!’ She ripped away another defense of the virus and overwrote it, entering the coordinates of Chin. This time, the virus didn't correct her change. She screamed for joy and leapt into the air. The Lulan laughed and jumped with her.

  Hanzo spoke up. "I assume that means you've succeeded. How come we haven't been launched yet?"

  "We've got about 20 minutes," Kaja said. "We need to get to the ship now!" Her mind wandered to Ben Wilson and Blaze.

  Again, she caught herself.

  ‘They're not my friends,’ she thought. It was, however, undeniable that a part of her hoped they were safe and would make it off the Freighter.

  She grabbed the Master Cube and turned to run, but stopped, noticing the Vice Captain hovering over her Captain's body.

  The Vice Captain held a small dagger in her spindly fingers. She reached down slowly and stabbed the Captain's blue body in the heart. Kaja gasped, and the Vice Captain looked at her.

  "He would have preferred it that way," Naxisteranda said. The eerie creature turned and left.

  Handa grabbed Kaja’s arm. "We need to move," he said.

  She nodded and they ran. Just as they made it to the door, a small voice rang out.

  "Don't leave me."

  Kaja paused, and Ramis threw up his hands.

  "What now?!"

  Kaja scanned the room. There was no one there. The voice rang out again. "Don't leave me."

  "Ms. Khan?" Hanzo said, frowning.

  "Can't you guys hear that?" Kaja asked. Ramis shook his head, and Hanzo said nothing. The Lulan had already run out of the room.

  "Don't leave."

  ‘It's the ship!’ Kaja realized. Its voice sounded different, maybe altered due to the virus damage, but she was certain.

  "It's the ship!" She said out loud. "I need to save it!"

  Ramis looked confused. "You said that was impossible."

  "I don't mean the actual ship. I mean.." Kaja clutched at the air, trying to explain herself. She groaned in exasperation. "Trust me it's the ship. And I can save it. I can download it into this." She held up the Master Cube. "You guys go without me. I'll come when I'm done." She ran back into the room.

  She overheard Hanzo speaking to Ramis. "You go. I'll stay with Ms. Khan."

  "Okay." Kaja sensed the hesitation in Ramis' voice. "But it's taking too long, just grab her," Ramis said.

  "Go," Hanzo demanded.

  Kaja interfaced the Master Cube with the control panel. Somehow, she knew exactly what to do. Hanzo came to stand next to her.

  "Thank you." Kaja whispered.

  "No worries," Hanzo said. "Do your work. Then I will do mine."